Carl Theodor Mirbt (July 21, 1860 in Gnadenfrei,

Province of Silesia The Province of Silesia (german: Provinz Schlesien; pl, Prowincja Śląska; szl, Prowincyjŏ Ślōnskŏ) was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1919. The Silesia region was part of the Prussian realm since 1740 and established as an official p ...

– September 27, 1929 in

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

) was a German Protestant

church historian Church Historian and Recorder (usually shortened to Church Historian) is a priesthood calling in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The role of the Church Historian and Recorder is to keep an accurate and comprehensive record of th ...

. He was a member of the

history of religions school The history of religions school (German: ''Religionsgeschichtliche Schule'') is a term applied to a group of German Protestant theologians associated with the University of Göttingen in the 1890s. Ideas The ''Religionsgeschichtliche Schule'' use ...

Biography

Mirbt studied

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...

from 1880 to 1885 in

Halle Halle may refer to: Places Germany * Halle (Saale), also called Halle an der Saale, a city in Saxony-Anhalt ** Halle (region), a former administrative region in Saxony-Anhalt ** Bezirk Halle, a former administrative division of East Germany ** Hal ...

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inha ...

and

. During his studies in Göttingen, he was a member of the Thuringia Academic Theological Society. In 1888, he became a member of the Theological Faculty of the University of Göttingen with a doctoral dissertation on "The Position of Augustine in the Gregorian Church Dispute". In 1888, he qualified as a Göttingen professor in church history. In 1889, he was an associate professor of church history at the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...

, and in 1890 a full professor there. He held the office of

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

(1903/04). From 1911 until his retirement in 1928, Mirbt was professor of church history at the University of Göttingen, where he served as rector (1920/21). In 1914 Carl Mirbt became an honorary member of the German fraternity Göttinger Wingolf. In 1918, Mirbt founded the German Society of Missionology, which he chaired until his death. From 1927 to 1929, he was chairman of the Society of Lower Saxon Church History.

Works (''translated German titles'')

* * ''The Prussian Legation at the court of the pope''. Leipzig: Evangel Bookstore d. Federal, 1899. * ''The Catholic - Faculty of Theology at Marburg: a contribution to the history of the Catholic church in the Electorate of Hesse and Nassau''. Marburg: Elwert, 1905. * ''Missionary and Colonial Policy in the German Protectorates''. Tübingen 1910 * ''History of the Catholic Church from the mid-18th Century until the Vatican Council''. Berlin .a. Goschen'sche Verl.buchh, 1913 * ''The Evangelical Mission: an Introduction to its History and Character''. Leipzig: Hinrichs'sche Bookstore, 1917.

Commentary on Mirbt

Kirby Page writes in ''Jesus or Christianity, A Study in Contrasts'' (1929):

In 1895 Carl Mirbt, a
prelate A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Christian clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which means 'carry before', 'be set above or over' or 'pre ...
of the Papal household, eulogized the
Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
in these words: "O blessed flame of those pyres by which a very few crafty and insignificant persons were taken away that hundreds of hundreds of phalanxes of souls should be saved from the jaws of error and eternal damnation! O noble and venerable memory of Torquemada!"
Preserved Smith Preserved Smith (July 22, 1880 – May 15, 1941) was an American historian of the Protestant Reformation. He was the son of Henry Preserved Smith, a noted scholar of the Old Testament, and inherited his name from a line of Puritan ancestors s ...

''The Age of the Reformation''
p.643

Note that Kirby Page's statement is a misinterpretation of the following excerpt from

Preserved Smith Preserved Smith (July 22, 1880 – May 15, 1941) was an American historian of the Protestant Reformation. He was the son of Henry Preserved Smith, a noted scholar of the Old Testament, and inherited his name from a line of Puritan ancestors s ...

'
''The Age of the Reformation''
where Smith cites p. 390 of Mirbt's 1911 edition o
''Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums''
(''Sources for the History of the Papacy'', a collection of original Papal documents through history), as the 1895 (coincidentally publication year of the first edition of ''Quellen'') Papal Latin source text of an unknown prelate, which Smith translates (in quotes) as follows:

A prelate of the papal household published in 1895 the following words in the ''Annales ecclesiastici'': "Some sons of darkness nowadays with dilated nostrils and wild eyes inveigh against the intolerance of the Middle Ages. But let not us blinded by that liberalism that bewitches under the guise of wisdom seek for silly little reasons to defend the Inquisition. Let no one speak of the condition of the times and intemperate zeal as if the church needed excuses. 0 blessed flames of those pyres by which a very few crafty and insignificant persons were taken away that hundreds of hundreds of phalanxes of souls should be saved from the jaws of error and eternal damnation. 0 noble and venerable memory of Torquemada!"

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mirbt, Carl 1860 births 1929 deaths German historians of religion German male non-fiction writers Academic staff of the University of Marburg Academic staff of the University of Göttingen Historians of Christianity People from Dzierżoniów County Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities